Freyburg

I’ve watched the Academy Awards for a long time, and this is probably the first time they got nearly everything right. If I participate in Oscar pools, I usually throw in what I want to win, not what probably will win. I would have cleaned up this year. The only thing that disappointed me was the lack of an Oscar for Bill Murray. Other than that, they were right on the money. I’m a little amazed that Return of the King did so well, though of course it deserved every win, up to and including Best Picture.

In a completely different vein (and opposite to the copyright craving fiends in Hollywood), here are the finalists from the Creative Commons video contest (the first video is by far the best.) Creative Commons is a license that allows people to set their own terms for the use of their artwork. It’s a cool idea, especially in comparison to the lawsuit happy antics of the RIAA. CC advocates tend to get a little histrionic and wave their hands around a lot, but they’ve got a point.

Here’s a video that lacks razzle dazzle, but makes up for it in sheer hilarious, barely-hidden kid show crudity. Apparently this actually did hit the airwaves in Britain in the early 80’s at some point. Regardless, you’ll laugh your “twanger” off when you see it.

Update: after a little reasearch, it turns out this was a Christmas gag tape for the staff of the show, and never actually went to air. It’s still mighty funny regardless.

Time for some audio-visual coolness from the Land of the Rising Sun.

First up, a new trailer for AppleSeed. Mmm, cell-shady.

Next, some live action movie that looks pretty cool. I’ll be damned if I could tell you what it’s about, though.

And finally, a phenomenal CG trailer for Onimusha 3, with a rather bizarre twist at the end….

Ever wondered how Nazi scumbags spend the weekend? This article gives a pretty chilling glimpse into a rather extreme gathering.

And speaking of right wing maniacs, check out this interview with a retired colonel who says that Iraq was in the Bush administration’s cross-hairs from the get-go.

Yesterday I went to Didsbury, to visit an old family friend (who has known me ever since I was a baby.) We took off this morning and flew around in his plane, but first I’ll describe my journey there.

I took off right after lunch, and got onto Highway 2 around 1 p.m. or so. Everything went fine until I got to Calgary and took the wrong exit. Instead of heading for Deerfoot Trail, I soon realized I was headed towards Saskatchewan. I quickly remedied this (well, actually it took me about a half hour to double back), and then headed to Olds. Yes, Olds. For some reason I had it in my head that I was supposed to go there, even though the map I had been faxed clearly said “Didsbury.” Anyway, I missed two exits trying to get to Olds, and to paraphrase Will Rogers, I think “I’ve never met an exit I didn’t miss.” Then after tooling around Olds and not being able to find my friend’s house (not surprisingly, since it wasn’t in Olds), my tiny brain clued in and I headed back to Didsbury. By this time I was dangerously low on fuel, so I eked my way into Didsbury, filled up, and finally arrived at my destination.

So today we went out to Dal’s plane. It’s a 1953 Cessna, and the best way to describe it is that riding in it is like being in a miniature Studebaker that happens to be able to fly. By which I mean it’s pretty damn cool, as well as having lots of old school knobs and gauges.

I was surprised that I wasn’t more wound up while we were flying around at 8500 feet. It really is sort of like being in a car. I even got to take the controls for a minute, though that was more than enough for me. 🙂 But quite frankly, I found the drive through Calgary on the Deerfoot on the way back much more stressful.
I put pictures of the day’s activities on the Real World Adventures section, and you can also click here.

Though it kind of comes of as a love letter to the new American Empire, this article in the Atlantic about the head U.S. military poobah in Mongolia is an interesting read.

And if you want to read about the flip side of the American Empire, check out this New York Times Magazine piece about wounded vets coming back from Iraq. (name: wfrey, pass: graylady)

Don’t know why I didn’t mention this before, but Lillebuen has a fine anti-Telus screed on his site. And speaking of phones, my BC number now works. Took a while, but it is functional.

That’s right, I went ice fishing today. It’s only the second time in my life that I’ve fished, and I caught 4 trout. Which was really no great accomplishment, as the people I was with caught more than I did. Still, a fine day out, and a new experience for this metropolitan ne’er do well.

I finally tossed in the towel on Avantgo. Their pathetic lack of Mac support is one thing; there are workarounds for that. But they didn’t even support Palm OS 5 (which the Zire runs on) until recently, and now that they do, you can only install it via Windows. So in a fit of insanity, I installed Virtual PC and tried to get it to talk to the Zire. No dice.
But that’s ok, since I found a program called iSilo, which is way better. It does everything that Avantgo does, plus it reads ebooks and is really customizable. No restrictions on the number of sites you can access, either. It costs $19 US to register, but I think these cats deserve my money (much like the good people at Audio Hijack).So screw you, Avantgo. You aren’t quite as useless as Telus, but you’re close.

If you’ve ever wanted to see what too much university will do to a person, here’s your chance.

In fact, a lot of the “A-list” bloggers seem to be pretty smug and satisfied with themselves. I’m at a loss as to why. Presumably most of them are English majors expostulating on the Internet, instead of some smoky alt-cafe. It’s as if all of a sudden their hidden dream to become “the cool kid” came true. More likely, it’s the second coming of dot.com BS, minus the wads of cash.

update: the site I pointed to isn’t being linked to anymore, since I got a rather peeved email from said site’s owner. So, down it goes. Kind of illustrates my point though, doesn’t it? 🙂

Yes, I’m aware of how hypocritical it is to bitch about blogs on a blog…

further Update: I also took down the discussion board. Myself and the other party have pretty come to an understanding, so there doesn’t seem to be much point to fanning the flames.